DSi XL

Nintendo has announced price cuts for the DSi and DSi XL, dropping one of the handhelds to under a Benjamin and hoping that it can spur sales of both to help return to profit this year. Effective May 20, Nintendo's recommended pricing for the DSi will be $99.99, while for the DSi XL it will be $129.99.

Nintendo has announced that it has two new bundle packs coming in time for the holiday season that pack in the DSi XL and some games to get players going. The new DSi XL bundles are available in blue or rose color is and they both offer the same games inside. The only difference between the two is the color of the DSi XL with one aimed at girls and the other at boys.

Nintendo has announced US availability and pricing for its Mario-red limited edition Wii and Nintendo DSi XL bundles, together with the Wii Remote Plus controller and FlingSmash bundle. Everything will reach North American shores on November 7th, two days after going on sale in Europe.

Nintendo has announced price cuts for the DSi and DSi XL, with the two portable consoles set to shed $20 apiece. As of September 12th, the Nintendo DSi will be priced at $149.99, while the Nintendo DSi XL will be $169.99; the DS Lit will stay at $129.99 as before.

We're scratching our heads at this one. It's only been a week since Nintendo announced that there would be new colors coming to the DSi XL line-up, and while that was all well and good, there wasn't any announcement saying that the new shades would be seeing release anywhere else other than Japan. And then Nintendo sneaks this one in: Midnight Blue is coming to the States.

Nintendo have announced their latest quarterly financial results [PDF link], and it proved a disappointing period for both Wii and DSi sales. Wii demand plummeted, falling 21-percent from the same period a year ago, while DSi sales dropped 13-percent. The company has blamed poor flagship Wii game title releases for middling demand for the console, and are looking to the new 3D-capable Nintendo 3DS to salve further handheld shortfalls.

Nintendo are blaming rampant piracy for a 45-percent drop in European DS game sales, pointing to so-called "magicom" or "R4" cartridges - which bypass copy protection and allow downloaded game ROMs to be played on the handheld - as the primary cause. The hacks have previously been a significant issue in Japan, but have more recently spread to Europe; Italy, Spain and France are particular hotspots, apparently.

Back when Nintendo mysteriously announced the 3D-capable 3DS in a blunt press release that looked more like an internal memo, we speculated that the company could've been looking to shore up their stock price ahead of the financial year ending. As it turns out, the move was a defensive one based on Japanese press discovering the 3DS' existence. According to one analyst, suppliers had spilled the beans on the handheld - which promises stereoscopic gaming without demanding special glasses be worn - and Nintendo chose to break the news themselves.

Like being brutalised in boarding school showers, suffering the indignity of a teardown is mandatory for today's top tech. iFixit have taken their screwdrivers and spudgers to the Nintendo DSi XL, fresh to the US this weekend, and now splayed across a table for us to pick through its components.

Nintendo's DSi XL isn't even on US shelves yet, and already gamers are prodding developers to find out details about the next-gen handheld. News on the Nintendo DS2 was top of the list for RPad.TV when they hit up GDC 2010, and they've managed to extract a few choice nuggets in the process. The DS2 - the official name of which nobody would, or could, spill - will apparently keep its dual-displays, but the panels will be larger, higher-resolution and have so minimal a gap between them that titles will be able to in effect use them as a single, big screen.